'Suspended Fruit' - Ceramics as Drawing. 2016

The Centre for Recent Drawing is pleased to present 'Suspended Fruit' - ceramics as drawing. 16th March - 16th April 2016
Reception 6-8pm 16th March

Exhibiton includes work by Mari Pårup, Laurence Owen, Mary Jones, Aneta Regal, Charlie Duck, Arabella Ross, Guy Marshall-Brown, Rose Gooding, Anna Fox, Katherine Cady, Sarah Purvey, Tarragon Smith.

C4RD is dedicated to looking at drawing in all contexts and part of the programme surveys how ideas surrounding the practice of drawing can be applied to different mediums. This exhibition is a showcase of working that looks at the importance of the sketch as a mode of drawing, and how contemporary ceramics may be read with the same visual language. It is made up of a number of artists whose treatment of ceramics has an expressive quality, and presents an element of ‘sketch’ within their work, and the similarities of sketch found in drawing. Some works show a definite debt to drawing.

The pieces in this show triumph in their ability to disclose the clay’s responsiveness to the gesture of the hand, allowing an element of plasticity and impermanence to be present. The nature of clay has always lent itself to the maquette, an imaginative projection of something that will be; the qualities that can be attached to a sketch. As we look at the work in this exhibition it is evident that these artists prioritise energy and vitality over achieving an immaculate finish, privileging the ability of clay to act as sketch. These works evidence a transience and ephemerality that is not commonly discussed in the world of contemporary ceramics.

It has been a real pleasure to take part in this exhibition and to meet many other interesting ceramic artists whose work uses drawing as a vehicle of expression.